Vicki Graff Photo
Kentucky coach John Calipari's numbers over the past four years are far from the “gold standard” he talks about for Kentucky basketball.
Kentucky is 2-8 in its last 10 postseason games in the SEC Tournament and NCAA Tournament after Thursday's 80-76 loss to Oakland. Britain had the advantage in all 10 matches, but won only two.
Recently fired Kentucky women's coach Kyla Elzy has won more postseason games than Calipari over the past four years.
Over the past four seasons, Kentucky has an 80-46 record and a winning percentage of .635. That includes just one NCAA Tournament championship in 2023. Kentucky statistician Corey Price compiled the last 126 games of other UK head coaches and compared them to Calipari's records over the past four years.
Those numbers were: Rick Pitino, 110-16 (.873); Adolph Rupp, 104-22 (.825); Joe Hall, 92-34 (.730). Tubby Smith, 91-35 (.722). and Eddie Sutton, 87-39 (.690).
Price also came up with the following trivia: 1992 Limited to seasons in which Kentucky was eligible for postseason play and had at least two possible postseason tournaments (SEC/NCAA/NIT) (1938-1952, 1979-1989). (from 2019 to 2021 to 2024), which is the record for UK's fewest postseason wins (two) among the four seasons of those periods.
Kentucky has won just one NCAA Tournament since UCLA signed Calipari to a 10-year contract extension in 2019, when they were pursuing him. Kentucky hasn't reached the Final Four since 2015.
Obviously the numbers aren't looking good for Calipari or Kentucky, and it's clear the fans aren't happy with the coach. But Calipari didn't seem like the coach ready to leave Kentucky after Thursday's heartbreaking loss.
“I've done that with young teams throughout my career and it's going to be hard to change that because we've helped so many young people and their families. I don’t think we’re saying, ‘Okay, we’re here.’” There are no plans to recruit new students. So we're blessed that families bring their sons to us and that we're doing what we need to do to help prepare them for the rest of their lives. That's it,” Calipari said.
“But I brought in some older players and we got it done. I like what we were doing offensively. How can we get stronger? How can we get more physical? Can we do it? All my teams have been better defensively in rebounding, but we've never been this good offensively. I like the coaching we've had this year.
“So we have to figure out who's coming back and who's not. Relocation work is going on. We might not need it. We've got an incredible group of people coming and it feels really good. . We've added some players and they're staying. I mean, we're going to meet with them tonight. We talked to them after that.
“But I'm going to meet them in my room tonight and they took this very seriously. I mean, they really struggled. I mean, they are and I'm going to take it for the rest of my life. I took it very seriously.”
He reiterated his apologies to UK fans, especially those who traveled to Pittsburgh to watch the UK game. But Kentucky's approach was “different,” he said.
“We were able to help so many kids, win so many games, win the Final Four, national titles, everything, win a league championship with our young players. Our situation is That’s changed,” Calipari said.
“All of a sudden I'm getting really old. I mean, we're playing a team with an average age of 19. Their average age is 24 and 25. So does that change me? Complementary We might add a few older players to help us do that.”
Again, this doesn't sound like a manager thinking about anything other than how to figure out a way to win in England in 2024-25.
